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Friday, January 30, 2015

Was Hitler a Christian?

I am currently reading through Frank Turek's new book Stealing from God and in it he addresses the often made claim that Adolf Hitler was a Christian.

Turek writes:

"...please don't tell me Hitler was a Christian. David Silverman suggested that in our debate, and it's completely contrary to the facts. Hitler may have used religious language for political gain. But does anyone really think that Hitler was sincerely and consistently worshiping a Jew whose guiding principle was to love God and your neighbor as yourself? Whatever Hitler believed, it wasn't orthodox Christianity...Hitler called Christianity one of the great 'scourges' in history and wanted Germans to be the 'only people immunized against this disease.'" [1] For more on what Hitler thought of Christianity, see here.
Turek later makes a vital point:

"Hitler's words and actions couldn't be more different than the words and actions of Christ. As Ravi Zacharias has observed, the Crusades and the Inquisition were the illogical outworking of Christianity. They went against everything Christ taught. And you don't judge a religion or philosophy by its abuse, but by its truths." [2]
You can checkout Turek's new book here and keep watching the blog for our review!

4 comments:

Hi Chad,Not having read the book in question, I'd like to just ask you what point is being made here? Is it that it is impossible for a Christian, e.g. one who was converted while young, to later backslide to such an extent that he can act in such an unchristian way, and thus Hitler could not possibly have been a Christian?Thanks,allan

Why do we always have to give them the Crusades? The First through Third were COMPLETELY justified. Why do we always feel compelled to sacrifice those brave men on the altar of liberal angst and self-hate?

The Crusades only truly lost focus come the Fourth Crusade, which was hijacked by Venetians.

The first three Crusades were the logical outcome of a culture with a combination of Christian values like protecting the innocent and self-sacrifice with ancient Frankish and Germanic warrior culture. The Muslims had been hammering at Europe for centuries - when you have many skilled in war, what better use for them than to go and protect Christian pilgrims from the depredations of those who would see all of Europe burn?

I apologize for taking so long to respond to your comment! Somehow, I overlooked it. For that, I apologize!

Some atheists (not all) claim that Hitler was a Christian. They sometimes use this to imply that Christianity (or religion) leads men to do evil. Or, they claim he was a Christian to deflect the claim that he was an atheist! Turek's point is to say, "It is silly to claim Hitler was a Christian."

To your question, I would say that I guess it is possible,, but I suppose the question I would want to ask is, "What reasons do we have for believing it?" Further, I'm not sure I agree that someone could backslide to such a radical degree. I think a more likely explanation is that Hitler never knew Christ in the first place.

It seems to me that Turek is right here. The fruit of Hilter's life indicates that he was not a Christian.